March 3rd, 2009
Projects by Christo
Last week was one of those weeks, where nothing worked out quite like it was supposed to. Our youngest daughter was sick and that threw everyone’s schedule into chaos, but it all worked out, and Friday was a wonderful ending to the week for me. I am currently participating in Defining Leadership for Men, which is one of the leadership programs offered by ICAN, and Friday was part of our second session. For those of us in the program, it was our blessing to spend the day at the Omaha Healing Arts Center (one of my favorite spaces in this community) with a short visit to the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (also a favorite). While there we were able to view a collection of work by Christo who has been creating really mind boggling works for several decades now, and we had the good fortune to meet Matthew Dehaemers, who is preparing an installation that opens on March 13th, called (402)DisConnect/ReConnect and is also amazing in scale and scope and weaves together several different themes about Omaha, community and communication. It was really a treat to be able to visit with him briefly and hear about how this idea developed for him and to really access the back story.
So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, I continue to think about this new way of leadership, and a couple of things really clicked for me on Friday. One of the things that clicked for me was actually something that one of the facilitators said. Towards the end of the day she said “we really need new language and new archetypes for this world that we are in.” That has been stuck in my brain since I heard it and I found myself thinking a lot this past weekend about where archetypes come from and how they develop. I think that new language and new archetypes regarding leadership are exactly what we need to be considering now.
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
We have a specific understanding of leadership now, on a cultural / societal level. That understanding of leadership (as well as the associated expectations, assumptions, relations to, etc.) is very much a root cause of our situation today. Until we have a new shared understanding of leadership, we only know to look to our “leaders” for solutions (or blame them for problems). That accomplishes nothing, or next to nothing, because our way of leadership is nearly irrelevant today and is not capable of solving the problems that it has at the very least contributed to. This is not about the people in those positions of “leadership”, but our way of leadership. That is why rearranging the people involved rarely leads to any signficant change, beyond the cosmetic.
We need to develop the language and archetypes to tell our new story. We have to paint the picture of a new way of leadership to help show what that would look like, and how our relationships could be.
The other thing that hit me on Friday was the power, and courage, and truth, and spirit involved in the creative process. To me, it seems that art is revelatory. If you are creating something (painting, dance, poem), who and what you are comes out in the creation. Our new way of leadership should be revelatory, our work should be revelatory. As we think about what new words, and images would frame our understanding of leadership, I think that this is a good place to start. We can begin by integrating some of the wisdom, learnings, rituals and practices from art, the creative process and personal craft.
Just as artists bring forth new ideas and new stories from the clay, the words, the sounds, and the colors they work with, leadership must primarily be about bringing forth that which exists inside of the people they are able to work with. We have a leadership today that is more focused on what people do or do not do, than on who they are becoming. This is a profound loss for us. This is potential, and wisdom and ideas forever lost to us.
It is time for a new way forward. It is time for us to be about creating that way together.
Matthew Dehaemers work.
Awesome post, Joe. Now I’m thinking about Patti Digh’s tweets related to stories. I’m wondering if our mainstream story about leadership is, essentially, a "not like us" story? That leadership is scarce, possessed by only a few, and beyond the reach of most of us. I think that’s a loss too.
Archetypes come from the stories we tell and the personal ones we live. Campbell once said that we, today, have outgrown our myths, that many of us are living in stories that are out of date. In turn,our archetypes and leaders/heroes are out of date. Too right. It is time for a new story to be spun, with a nod to the great heroes of the past. We need a new kind of leadership. Very glad you’re part of it. Matthew Dehaemers mural is fabulous!
Really great post. Interesting that you should mention Christo, who wraps and envelops buildings and other large scale things in order to reveal the simple beauty in their shapes. It’s the paradox of enveloping something in order to show it and I think you’re right about new archetypes of leadership, where if we can develop the language we need to help people understand it, they will at the same time then know how to DO it or BE it.